Disaster Management

The volcano explosion in Iceland has really caused some funky weather here in Copenhagen. April is almost over and the weather is still unusually cold. This is how crazy it is. Last Tuesday, it was pouring rain while I was walking to class, then it was snowing while I was sitting in class, then it was hailing during break, and finally blue sky and sunshine when I got back home. Talk about multiple personalities!

The ash clouds also caused quite the chaos for my friends who were traveling. Sara was stuck in Switzerland for a couple of extra days and had to miss a few days of class. Stef's flight to Paris was canceled, so she had to take a 13 hour train ride instead. Some other friends went to Japan, and were able to fly into the Stockholm airport, but the connection flight to Copenhagen was canceled. I REALLY hope that the volcano has settled because I'll be pretty upset if it messes up my travel plans for May and June!

last Thursday night's crazy skies and pretty lights

Speaking of natural disasters....
I am absolutely in love with my new course in Health in Emergency Situations and Refugee Health. It's a masters level course that Sara and I had to get special permission to take. Now I understand why. All my class mates come with a good background in disaster management and relief work. They are a lot older and some have even traveled to Copenhagen just to take this course. In my class, there are 3 physicians from a local Danish hospital, a teacher and doctor from Kenya, a doctor from Nigeria, a nurse from Sweden, several people who have worked with Doctors without Borders, and many other Master students. Our lecturers come from a variety of professional backgrounds (the one we had today had just come back from Haiti), and our professor is just amazing. Everyone is so passionate about the subject.

To be honest though, I'm really intimidated by the level of experience in the class sometimes. The pace is very fast, the topics are complex, and the students are very critical. There's a lot of class participation and group activities.  However, it just motivates me and makes me want to learn more about everything.

The size of the class is relatively small compared to what I'm used to back home. I've come to know a lot of my classmates. We all went over to our professor Siri's house for dinner last Wednesday. Her place was super cozy with candles, antique asian furniture, fresh flowers, little Buddha statues, tapestries, and other artifacts. You can tell that she's a very well traveled individual. It was nice to sit and relax in the sun room with wine, good company, and intellectual conversation.

Anyway, I've been pretty busy with this course. I also have a paper due this week... so I should get back to work. But before I go, let me leave you with this amusing picture of a scene from the kitchen window. We had a good laugh at this.

That's the window to our broom closet and we didn't think the landlord would appreciate a bird's nest in there.. so, we had to close it.